I imagine, if there is a God, he should understand that man has to go through a lot of toil throughout life. Knowing this, God first made women, and then he made drugs.

Drugs are Gods gift to human beings. His little loophole to the toil we go through. Why else would he create them, or give humans the knowledge to create them? Its obvious that God put them here for us to get high, to get closer and have a more meaningfull relationship with him. I mean, even Jesus drank wine. He probably had a nice little buzz going too. Even though there are negitive side effects of drugs, I think that all Christians should embrace them and use them to bring themselves closer to their lord.

As long as your responsible, people should have the right to use drugs for religious purposes. Why not?

The Ethiopian Coptic Church is where it's at.

(Genesis, 1: 29) -- "Behold, I have given you every plant yielding seed which is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food."

Amen brother!

God's Bliss is far greater than any drug ever created,

what do drugs do? i think they remove filters. the "harder" the drug, the more filters removed. thats why we suddenly get visuals, hear things and so on, e.g. when taking psychoactives.

removing filters might be a way to find your god. so drugs can, from religions point of view, be his/hers/its way of trying to teach us a wider point of view and ultimately finding a way to him/her/it.

True, true, as far as I know, hallucinagens remove these filters your speaking of by interfering with the Raphe System.

I agree. I think "alot" (not all) people view life to narrowly. Teachers, priests, strict militant type parents, cops...they think life should be orderly and completely moral. Others would say it's becuase they want the world to be a nice, peaceful place. I guess that would be nice if everyones problems were completely gone..but think if everything was perfect? then what determines a good day from a bad day? Drugs need to be in the world and I agree God created these drugs on purpose if they weren't meant to be then they wouldn't exist. I'm sure drug use is a sin but then that's why praying exists.

Then there are those of us who have been down the drugs path, realized that they're not a 13 year old kid anymore, and now just avoid them entirely.

Most of the old 'wise' men back in Jesus' time used to smoke weed and use all sorts of hallucinogens. I reckon that's where a lot of their visions came from. Put that in your pipe.

Okay, I've got nothing against drugs. I used to get loaded on illicit substances all the time, and I retain my affection for one, alcohol. But I've never thought it removed any inhibitors besides the social and judgement ones.

I don't think the lord has anything against drugs. But I wonder if he frowns upon those who use bongs, I mean. Do you really want to filter out all that good old resin.

Mmmmmm weed, goodbye all, I need to talk to a friend now.

quote:Originally posted by Armed&Angry:

Okay, I've got nothing against drugs. I used to get loaded on illicit substances all the time, and I retain my affection for one, alcohol. But I've never thought it removed any inhibitors besides the social and judgement ones.

You get what you put into it. I used to do drugs solely for the purely hedonistic purposes of "getting loaded".

It wasn't until I started using drugs specifically towards the goals of improving myself and expanding my awareness that it started happening to me.

Uh huh, sure. And does it occur to you that the very purpose of drugs is to reduce the stranglehold of reality on you? Doesn't it follow that you're not having a vision quest, but rather simply a different brain chemical cocktail than usual?

Jesus says that you are not to damage, destroy or abuse the temple of the holy spirit which is your body, which basically means, Don't do drugs to the extent where you can't do any other enjoyments of life, so its like alcohol, don't abuse it, just like drugs, don't abuse them, even though some are really impossible not to abuse

God has no preferences regardoing your behavior, so long as it reflects your best and highest (no pun intended) conception of yourself. If the best you can come up with for yourself is to be a pathetic druggie, god pretty much says "Go for it."

Since you have an immortal soul and will eventually reincarnate or join the godhead ("go to Heaven" in Xianspeak) god really doesn't give a shit what you do to your body, or anyone else's.

quote:Originally posted by Armed&Angry:

Uh huh, sure. And does it occur to you that the very purpose of drugs is to reduce the stranglehold of reality on you? Doesn't it follow that you're not having a vision quest, but rather simply a different brain chemical cocktail than usual?

So what? Its not the experience itself that matters, its what you get out of it.

Sex, drugs and rock 'n roll is the way to experience God.

Where does it say That "God has no preferences about your behavior"

quote:Originally posted by Doofus:

Most of the old 'wise' men back in Jesus' time used to smoke weed and use all sorts of hallucinogens. I reckon that's where a lot of their visions came from. Put that in your pipe.

I want sources.

Not that I agree with the use of foreign substances (drugs don't do anything your brain can't do independently), but there is a Christian church in Brazil that uses a specific kind of hallucinogenic mushroom during service. They consume it, pray, and trip for about 8 hours. Can't remember what mushroom it was, though.

The Christians that take mushrooms in South America are just going through the Shamantic rituals with a Christian Cover, it's a very common thing from my understanding, as all the same symbols are there, just with different names.

This is, I beleive, where the idea comes from and why people beleive that Jesus and like peole took drugs, because of the archetyple symbolism, you can do it with any literature like this, The Illiad, Jason and the Argonauts, lots of Tribal Mythology.

In some cases though, I don't think Jesus is one of them, some teachers have used drugs as a method of gaining knowledge of this sort. Swami Satyananda wrote that it is the fastest method bar none for achiving the highest state, God-Realisation, but that it's also the most dangerous, and next to nobody can even teach it adiquately anymore, and a path where the guide is most necessary, and most probably a somebody powerful enough not to need drugs to teach His/Her disciples anyway.

The main reason cited for this is that you are working with name and form (is the simplest way to decribe it, anything you can have any concept of) and trying to use it to prepell you beyond it. It's much easier just to focus completely on the goal, and it's much much harder to get side tracked.

It's also worth noting that none of the big guys is world religion, Jesus, Krishna, Buddha, Mahummad..., have been seen to advocate this method, (the closest you would come I think would be the Priests of Ancient South America, who I don't know a lot abot) even the Sufis that constantly talk of wine, are never acctualy talking of wine, but "The Friut of the Vine" which is the Love of God.

My personal opinion is that drugs themselves do nothing but only help create a situation where the Kundalini can easily accened, this can be hard enough to deal with by itself, without worring about everything else that go along with drugs, and can acctualy in my own experience make the 'religious experience' a lot worse.

Ram Das, formaly Richard Alpert Ph.D., friend of Timothy Leary, I heard used acid once when he came back to America after being in India (studying with his Guru) and it had absolutely no effect on Him. So that may give some idea on the value of drugs.

quote:Originally posted by Hammer&Sickle:

Where does it say That "God has no preferences about your behavior"

As a gnostic, I have little regard for so-called holy books in general, being as most of the ones I am familiar are mostly crap. At best, the old ones have been grossly distorted through centuries of translating tranlations, and the new ones have been filtered through the mind-sets and preconceived notions of the channellers.

Having said that, I must confess to have been strongly influenced by the "Conversations with God" series, mainly because all the stuff about the nature of god resonates so strongly with me, and stands to reason. At least, to what I laughingly refer to as reason.

I don't buy all the notions in the books--whether that is out of fear, denial, or superior intuition or intellect is something I have not yet sussed out.

I've heard that people used to rub hemp leaves ( marijuana leaves) on Jesus' wounds when he was put on the cross to help relief pain..anyone know anything about this?

www.csp.org (http://www.csp.org) ... sorry it doesn't link but i was born without the left hemisphere of my brain.

apparently it does,hurrah!

I think drugs are provided to us so that we may learn. Many are afraid of what they learn, a smaller group of people have their lives changed in anyway from a realization of a simple emotional folly to the understanding of existence(I cannot wait!). I can't help but get the feeling you are all referring to the christian god, however, the christian god is for christians to believe in, a true god would be loved by everyone, he wouldn't want to reveal himself to us, merely to teach us until he had someone truely like himself, we are made in his image perhaps, but perhaps it is because he is lonely.

quote:Originally posted by penjo0in:

I think drugs are provided to us so that we may learn. Many are afraid of what they learn, a smaller group of people have their lives changed in anyway from a realization of a simple emotional folly to the understanding of existence(I cannot wait!). I can't help but get the feeling you are all referring to the christian god, however, the christian god is for christians to believe in, a true god would be loved by everyone, he wouldn't want to reveal himself to us, merely to teach us until he had someone truely like himself, we are made in his image perhaps, but perhaps it is because he is lonely.



Thats one of the most thoughtful posts I've read on this board. w3rd.

Personally, I don't do drugs because I'm afraid of the damage.

I'm one of those people that knows they aren't going to live forever, but tries to live as long as possible reguardless.

quote:Originally posted by Dark_Magneto:

Personally, I don't do drugs because I'm afraid of the damage.

I'm one of those people that knows they aren't going to live forever, but tries to live as long as possible reguardless.

Why not take advantage while your young and enjoy your youth. You can expand your horizons and live as a better person as you get older. Really, if your responsible about drugs, damage isn't really a factor. Don't grow old and miss what could be some great experiances for you. If you really don't want to, its your decision. Some people are better off, but remember, your missing a lot.

You can minimize the damage you know, in fact with most drug users, I've found stupidity does more damage than the drugs themselves.

Medically speaking, smoking a fat joint does about as much damage to you as a chinese food dinner.